GenX, introduced a decade ago as a “safer” alternative for the notorious non-stick chemicals PFOA and PFOS, is nearly as toxic to people as what it replaced, says an Environmental Protection Agency study released today.

The family of fluorinated compounds known as PFAS chemicals includes more than 4,700 chemicals – some linked to cancer, thyroid disease, weakened immunity and developmental defects, and others whose health effects are unknown. One thing’s for sure: You don’t want them in your body.

A government report released today – which was suppressed by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Defense and the White House for fear it would cause a “public relations nightmare” – recommends a much lower safe level for toxic fluorinated, or PFAS, chemicals than the EPA’s non-enforceable health advisory level.

Attached is a letter submitted by more than 50 public interest organizations calling on the Department of Health and Human Services to release a recent toxicological profile by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry that assesses the

A wide-ranging coalition of public interest groups is calling for the immediate release of a suppressed federal study that says perfluorinated chemicals in drinking water are hazardous at much lower levels than the Environmental Protection Agency’s guidelines state.

Mixtures of chemicals commonly found in consumer products are more likely to increase breast cancer risk than the same chemicals individually, according to a new analysis. But safety tests by government regulators don’t routinely evaluate the combined effects of multiple chemical exposures.

At a so-called leadership summit today, Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt said drinking water contaminated with toxic fluorinated chemicals is a “national priority.” But a new EWG report reveals that the EPA hasn’t even told Americans the true extent of the pollution, which is much worse than previously reported.

The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry is preparing to propose safe levels for fluorinated chemicals in drinking water nearly six times more stringent than the Environmental Protection Agency’s recommendation.

The latest update of an interactive map by EWG and the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute at Northeastern University documents publicly known PFAS pollution from 94 sites in 22 states, including industrial plants and dumps, military air bases, civilian airports and fire training sites. It also shows PFAS pollution of tap water for 16 million people in 33 states and Puerto Rico.

Two decades after pollution from highly toxic fluorinated chemicals was first reported in American communities and drinking water, the number of known contamination sites is growing rapidly, with no end in sight.

EWG has submitted comments to the California Department of Toxic Substances Control on the agency’s proposed listing of carpets and rugs containing PFAS chemicals as a priority product for review as part of the Safer Consumer Products Program.

Exposure to fluorinated industrial chemicals, known as PFAS or PFC chemicals, may increase the amount of weight that people, especially women, regain after dieting, according to a new study by Harvard University researchers, published in PLOS Medicine. It found that women with higher levels of PFAS chemicals in their blood at the start of the study regained an average of 3.7 to 4.8 pounds more than women with lower levels of the chemicals in their blood.